


Sleeping On a Train

by Jeevey



Series: Love in the Time of Corona [10]
Category: British Singers RPF, Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds (Band), Oasis (Band)
Genre: Classical Music, Infidelity, M/M, Trains
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-24
Updated: 2021-01-24
Packaged: 2021-03-15 22:40:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,219
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28946043
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jeevey/pseuds/Jeevey
Summary: March 16, 2020.
Relationships: Liam Gallagher/Noel Gallagher, Noel Gallagher/Sara MacDonald
Series: Love in the Time of Corona [10]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1747696
Comments: 9
Kudos: 15





	Sleeping On a Train

March 16 2020

They were in rehearsals for the Teenage Cancer Trust gig when Rosie stepped away to take a call. It was a stripped back rehearsal because of the virus thing, just Noel and Rosie’s strings in her King’s Cross studio. There were final arrangements to be written before Noel brought in his band. Noel leaned back and watched Rosie listen and nod.

He loved the cancer trust shows. He’d been working on them for most of the last thirteen years, and Rosie Danvers had arranged and led his strings for every one, as well as did them for all his solo work. He loved being part of one of the most prestigious lineups in rock, of course. He loved the year he’d been asked to curate the lineup. What a dream; he could get anyone in music that he wanted, and did. It felt fantastic. But it wasn’t just that, though, and everyone involved knew it. The fact was that the series was always just a little bit raw.

Working with kids with cancer will do that, he guessed. Makes everything more eminent, a little closer to the surface. They knew it, too--always used the kids as backstage runners, hiring them as interns if they made it long enough. Always putting them in front of the artists, making sure they’d get acquainted and understand what it was really about. Noel did. Even at the worst if times when he was a kid, he knew he would grow out of it. All he had to do was make it through until he was old enough to get Mam out of the house, and go. But these kids, well. You never really knew.

He popped into the Cancer Trust offices in Fitzrovia now and again, always with some inane question that his assistant could have asked, always looking for the familiar faces of the kids who had been his runner in spring. Oftentimes they were there. Sometimes not. He asked after one of them once, a lovely girl called Cassandra who stood half a foot taller than him in her wedges and made him laugh at her wide-eyed serious jokes. He’d known her as a tyke delivering water bottles in the early years, then later as an intern who organized his dressing room perfectly. It was almost eight months later that he stopped in, meaning to poach her for his own office. 

“Is Cassandra in?” he asked, after a time talking with the woman who was his usual contact. 

Her face grew slowly stunned. “No,” she said, and the red rushed into her eyes. “I’m so sorry you didn’t hear. Cassandra...isn’t with us anymore.”

So. The shows were always a little raw, and he loved them intently. He loved Rosie, the utter sharpness of her mind behind her china doll looks and the way she made him feel like he actually knew something about music. The way her players all seemed to be born with an orchestra under their skins. The Royal Albert Hall and its rolling arches, and the sheer joy of playing in a room that was built for really listening to proper music. The way his own songs sounded in it, huge and beautiful and ragged.

He’d been doing nothing since Christmas, that was the problem. Pottering around the house, playing video games with the boys all day when Sara was in London on her own, drinking himself to sleep every night. Stewing in it, really. It was good to be back at work.

Something about the tone of Rosie’s voice caught his ear. He turned to see her shake her head once, sharply, making the glossy curls bounce. Her voice, normally perfectly modulated, rose a semitone. “Fine, okay,” she said, and came back toward them.

“Pack up, everyone,” she said, “we’re going home.”

“What?” Noel said in disbelief.

“New advice from the PM about the virus. No inessential traveling. Avoid theaters, pubs, and gatherings. Work from home if possible.” Rosie grimaced at her players. None of those fuckers could work from home. 

“That’s ridiculous,” Noel said. “It’s not the Blitz, we can keep on working.” 

Rosie began packing sheet music into a briefcase. “You don’t have to go home but you can’t stay here, Noel,” she said. “And neither can they. It’s my studio, I’d be liable if any of you got sick here. I’m sorry, everyone, I’ll be in touch.”

“Theyr'e gonna do the shows though,” Noel asked.

“I don’t know,” Rosie said, but her face said no.

The streets were strangely quiet. How could things have emptied out so fast? Noel carried a backpack and a guitar that he normally left at the studio during the last week of rehearsals. He’d looked at it at the last minute with a sense of vague disquiet, as if he was jinxing things either by taking or leaving it, and decided it was better to have it. They might be at the hall when rehearsals resumed next week.

No one looked at him as he made his way down the chilly streets. The people he passed looked furtive, hurried. They looked afraid. The train station was more of the same, people anxiously clicking their phones and looking about as if they were ashamed of something. It filled him with rage and disgust, to see people afraid on the streets of London.

It was only a couple of stops until he’d have to decide where he was going, west to the London house or south out of town toward Hampshire, toward Sara and the boys. Impulsively he pulled out his phone and texted her. _On my way home_

The seconds before her response bubbles showed seemed to last forever. _What why?_ She didn’t expect him home before the weekend, at least.

 _Look at the news_ Another silence while she looked.

_Bollocks. That’s ridiculous. They can’t shut down the entire country??_

_I know_ he typed. See you soon. Don’t tell the boys, I’ll surprise them 

Noel didn’t believe in being productive on trains. That was for tour managers. He’d read the news or sometimes hum a lyric, but mostly he slipped into an hour-eating trance of unconcentration, letting the world make flashing pictures in his mind that would resurface later in a song, if they wanted. If they were important. He leaned against the glass and watched the dark walls and flashing lights flicker by.

The people in his car showed the same sense of fear as the street. People huddled more closely than usual to their phones, or stared intently at the floor behind their headphones. He hated them. He wanted to go over and kiss every one of them on the mouth. To shout at them, stop this. 

On the platform at Euston station Noel saw one man who wasn’t afraid. He was in a raincoat, though the day up top was dry. He laughed and pointed at someone Noel couldn’t see, showing a flash of white teeth and crinkles around his eyes. Noel’s stomach lurched with fear and longing. The man tilted his head and moved his hands, telling a silly story. He grinned again, and shrugged. The train slipped by. Noel didn’t turn his head to look. He stared at the wall and the flashing lights, trying to calm his beating heart.


End file.
